I have been alluding lately to my thesis writing and how
badly it is going. I am in the writing-up part of the process, which means I
have pretty much done all of my research and I’m attempting to form it into a
formal document which I will submit for assessment. The truth is, I am really
struggling with it right now. I had all of last week to focus on writing and
focus I did – I spent at least 40 hours with my bum on my desk chair sitting at
my desk looking at my computer. But, at the end of the week, I felt no closer
to finishing my goal than I had at the start. I’d done stuff – updated my
Endnote library, changed fonts, moved paragraphs around, printed and
highlighted a lot of articles – but that was really all just faffing. I had done
work but it wasn’t productive or effective and I knew that if I kept going like
that I would never ever get my thesis done.
In desperation, I followed one of the recommendations from
the Thesis Whisperer and borrowed How to
Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing by Paul J
Syliva (I know that some would say reading about writing is just another form
of procrastination but they would be wrong). Oh my God! This book is amazing.
In the course of my professional life I have read dozens of books on writing, grammar
and style and this is hands-down the best book I have ever read on writing.
Silvia begins by acknowledging that writing is hard. If you’re an academic,
chances are you find research and data-collection somewhat enjoyable (I do!).
Writing, on the other hand, can become “a sordid drama” (7) of excuses, guilt,
procrastination, anxiety, avoidance and defensiveness (all of which I
experienced last Tuesday alone). Silvia argues that writing shouldn’t be that
way – it should be a mundane, regular part of the academic experience, just like
teaching is. It should be just another thing that we do as academics, no drama,
no stress, no angst. Silvia writes:
How to Write a Lot
views writing as a set of concrete behaviors, such as (a) sitting on a chair,
bench, stool, ottoman, toilet, or patch of grass and (b) slapping your fingers
against the keyboard to generate paragraphs. You can foster these behaviors
using simple strategies. Let everyone else procrastinate, daydream, and
complain—spend your time sitting down and moving your mittens. (7-8)
Sounds fantastic!
Reading further, I found out that I was what Silvia
categorises as a binge-writer – I faff about and procrastinate all week before
spending one day just banging out words. As he notes, that’s a stressful and ineffective
way to work. To become a productive writer, he says you need to institute an
ongoing set of behaviours. These are as follows.
Firstly, you must set aside a regular time to write and
stick to it. He says he gets out of bed and spends two hours writing every
morning, before even showering. I can’t do that – I need to start the day with
a coffee and the paper – but I am productive in the morning, so I have picked
9-11am every weekday. I programmed my phone so it goes into “do not disturb”
mode on those hours every weekday and I will turn off the modem. I also have
non-academic writing I like to do to keep me grounded in everyday life (like
this blog!) so I also plan on scheduling an hour for writing in the evening
from 4-5pm.
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| You can't see it clearly here but there are two mini whiteboards to the left of my computer with my academic and non-academic goals for the week outlined |
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| Ready to work with coffee, water, study knitting and a notepad for jotting down stuff like things that need to be looked up on the Internet or non-writing tasks that I need to remember to do at some stage |
The final steps are to monitor your progress and reward
yourself. These steps are hard! Silvia uses an SPSS spreadsheet to check
whether he’s met his daily goals and to track how much he’s done on which
project. I am traditionally very bad with this kind of thing – I’ve never kept
a food diary or money tracker for more than two weeks. This seems pretty
simple, so hopefully I can do it. In terms of rewards, I’m not really sure how
best to reward myself. I really have weekly goals that I have to meet if I’m
going to submit my thesis on time, so maybe every Friday if I’ve met my goals I
can go out for Friday night drinks? But Saturday morning hangovers are not
conducive to good weekends…I’ll have to think about it.
Reading this book has been a transformative experience for
me. Last week I felt panic every time I thought about my thesis. I went to
every length possible to avoid actually working on it and instead worked around
it every way I could. But like Silvia says, why make writing such a special
activity? It’s hard, but so is finding the motivation to go for a swim twice a
week when it’s six degrees outside and I manage to do that without fail. If I
can be disciplined in other aspects of my life, there is no reason why I can’t
be disciplined with writing as well. I feel more positive about my thesis today
than I have for months. Realistically, I know that I need to do more than two hours
of work a day to get it done but I really feel if I use that solid time as a
base, I can get this stupid thing done. Thank you, Paul J Silvia!
There was one distraction he did not give me any advice how
to deal with though…
